Should we sell off the ghost estates for nothing?

Amhran Nua

K-9 wrote: »

It isn't the worst idea at all.

It is pretty tempting, things like zombie movies are very cheap to make. Here are a few shorts made for the sub €1000 mark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnBAULXQQPQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD44wcA-I_A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jNaX9OjAaw

The guns are all airsoft, the muzzle flashes, fires, red chalk dust blood and explosions are just library images pasted in, a few green screens for the craic, and I know some people literally handing out musical scores for free. Your biggest costs would be editing and makeup, really, other than convincing a ghost estate developer to let you have the run of the place in exchange for a share of the take or something.

I'd start out in a well known Dublin nightclub, where for the laugh several of the bartenders decide to feed slops to some lad that's well on it. After drinking the toxic sludge, next thing you know he's ate-ing the face off some young wan. Then we go to our redoubtable heroes, trying to catch a taxi in Dublin city centre after midnight, when all hell breaks loose, so no special effects needed there really. They meet up with a couple of ladies fleeing the trouble, and off they go.

They make their way out of the city into some Countryside, before coming to the place where most of it would be shot, the ghost estate, although you wouldn't let on that it was originally empty of course. Add in some punchy social commentary about travellers they meet along the way, who help them, and you've got a movie.

All purely off the top of me head, it would be like Hollyoaks and Father Ted meets Dawn of the Dead.

Of course, if you're doing it on a microbudget it won't help the ghost estates problem much, but it might inspire better financed people to take advantage of them.

Unpossible

Using empty buildings/estates for film locations isn't a bad idea. If we could set up an industry around it where a studio could come in and have extras and crew readily available it could really work. My wife told me that there is a town in china where they built a replica of the forbidden city and the locals are all drilled in ancient army drills so if you want to film something on ancient china you just pay money and turn up.
Some punk or emo band did it a few years ago.

scheister

Its not a bad idea im sure there are kinks in it somewhere

How about Houses are sold at rate of 20k a bedroom so ya get a nice 3 bed for 60k

and apartments for 10k a bedroom.

With the money raised the houses can be brought up to livable state. hire builders off the dole there all ready getting €196 a week off the state so say 300 a week to work on the houses only costs an extra 104. and think of the circle of money effect on the wage. Also the appentices that are near the end of there training but were left short can do there time in them.

Tar.Aldarion

should be a lottery for them, come on number 3!

old_aussie

Buy one, get another one of equal or lesser value free.

ebixa82

Of the 120,000 ghost houses how many are ready to move into? Very few.

Even if some of the houses are ready loads of these estates have no proper lighting, sewerage, paving etc. And none of the bankrupt developers have money to complete them.

If people are to simply be handed one of these houses for free then those paying mortgages in negative equity next door would go ballistic. Not very fair now is it?

Love the lottery idea.. 500euro for a ticket.

connundrum

The houses should be sold for something i.e.

If a 'shost estate' house was sold for an average of €50,000:

€20,000 from each should go to NAMA to reduce the amount that we as a state have on our debit sheet by approx €3bn (€20,000 x 150,000 units)

€20,000 from each unit should go towards the finishing of the estate i.e. roads, lights, greens etc. This amount could be lowered in cases where estates are near completion.

€10,000 from each should go to maintaining the estate for the coming 8-10 years. This would get rid of the constant battle that management companies have in trying to get years fees from owners, and should also see the estate through to a point whereby the council should be in a position to take over the maintenance of it.

In this system, buyers would get a house for very little - reducing the need for mortgages.

The state would need to provide less in the way of social housing, mortgage relief. The state (NAMA) would benefit from income, and would have to spend less on maintaining unfinished estates etc.

Estates would be self sufficient for 8-10 years.

Sofiztikated

Amhran Nua wrote: »

It is pretty tempting, things like zombie movies are very cheap to make. Here are a few shorts made for the sub €1000 mark:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnBAULXQQPQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD44wcA-I_A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jNaX9OjAaw

The guns are all airsoft, the muzzle flashes, fires, red chalk dust blood and explosions are just library images pasted in, a few green screens for the craic, and I know some people literally handing out musical scores for free. Your biggest costs would be editing and makeup, really, other than convincing a ghost estate developer to let you have the run of the place in exchange for a share of the take or something.

I'd start out in a well known Dublin nightclub, where for the laugh several of the bartenders decide to feed slops to some lad that's well on it. After drinking the toxic sludge, next thing you know he's ate-ing the face off some young wan. Then we go to our redoubtable heroes, trying to catch a taxi in Dublin city centre after midnight, when all hell breaks loose, so no special effects needed there really. They meet up with a couple of ladies fleeing the trouble, and off they go.

They make their way out of the city into some Countryside, before coming to the place where most of it would be shot, the ghost estate, although you wouldn't let on that it was originally empty of course. Add in some punchy social commentary about travellers they meet along the way, who help them, and you've got a movie.

All purely off the top of me head, it would be like Hollyoaks and Father Ted meets Dawn of the Dead.

Of course, if you're doing it on a microbudget it won't help the ghost estates problem much, but it might inspire better financed people to take advantage of them.

I'm in if you ever go from "maybe" to "Ah, why not."

MagicSean

Give them to people claiming rent allowance. Then they'll have a proper home and we won't have to pay them rent allowance any more.

The biggest problem with most ghost estates is the simple fact that they are in the wrong places.

No shops, pubs, leisure facilities etc. in their locality, estates are supposed to be suburban. Why squeeze a large number of people into a field in the middle of nowhere.

MagicSean

Deleted User wrote: »

The biggest problem with most ghost estates is the simple fact that they are in the wrong places.

No shops, pubs, leisure facilities etc. in their locality, estates are supposed to be suburban. Why squeeze a large number of people into a field in the middle of nowhere.

Fine. Add a bus route to the nearest town. Solves that problem. Besides, once the estates are full you can guarantee someone will set up facilities to exploit the competition free market there.

Run_to_da_hills

I suggest that that Nama and the National Lottery get together and throw in a house every week with the lotto.

If someone wins one and dosen't partically want to move to the said location they will flog it on for buttons to get some refund.

They will always find a taker it if is to be moved on cheap. This way everyone will be happy.

ebixa82

k_mac wrote: »

Fine. Add a bus route to the nearest town. Solves that problem. Besides, once the estates are full you can guarantee someone will set up facilities to exploit the competition free market there.

It's facilities like playgrounds, football pitches, sports clubs etc . Things that are not profitable but keep kids busy and prevents boredom which leads to alcohol and drug use a la Ballymun...Who would be arsed building such facilities when there's nothing in it for them!

jackiebaron

Turn them all into brothels.

Run_to_da_hills

jackiebaron wrote: »

Turn them all into brothels.

I'm sure that this is already going on around the country under their noses.

Sofiztikated

ebixa82 wrote: »

It's facilities like playgrounds, football pitches, sports clubs etc . Things that are not profitable but keep kids busy and prevents boredom which leads to alcohol and drug use a la Ballymun...Who would be arsed building such facilities when there's nothing in it for them!

Who built them in the first place?

Why wouldn't someone take the initiative to build something near a built up area? That's how new town and areas start.

Sofiztikated

Sofiztikated wrote: »

Who built them in the first place?

Why wouldn't someone take the initiative to build something near a built up area? That's how new town and areas start.

Because they had farmland and wanted to make a few bucks selling it to developers who wanted to make even more money and to support certain bankers, Councillors & TDs lifestyles as they all benefitted from the ponzi scheme. The only losers were those that bought them after 2002 and didn't flip them before the bubble popped!

Sofiztikated

Deleted User wrote: »

Because they had farmland and wanted to make a few bucks selling it to developers who wanted to make even more money and to support certain bankers, Councillors & TDs lifestyles as they all benefitted from the ponzi scheme. The only losers were those that bought them after 2002 and didn't flip them before the bubble popped!

I meant, who built the clubs, sportgrounds etc that are already established. It was a rhetorical question.

homerjay2005

putting the people on rent allowance into them is a super idea,that should be implemented asap.

if there are, as said in this thread, 91,000 receiving rent allowance and 120,000 houses, theres potential savings a 1/2 a billion a year waiting jsut there. if they dont want to move, then f*ck them, cut their allowance until they do. theres 3 blocks of brand new apartments located within a mile of my house, that are empty while i am sure, there are 100's of people within that area, receiving rent allowance thats going to paying landlords mortgages.

goose2005

Deleted User wrote: »

Actually I was having a conversation with someone about these. Does squatters rights still exist and, if so, could you squat in one of these ghost houses and possibly own it afterwards?

You have to stay there for 10 years, though.

Chuchoter

This:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ellen_dunham_jones_retrofitting_suburbia.html

melekalikimaka

ilovesleep wrote: »

, and would reduce rents for everyone renting.

and crash the market

red menace

Deleted User wrote: »

Actually I was having a conversation with someone about these. Does squatters rights still exist and, if so, could you squat in one of these ghost houses and possibly own it afterwards?

Do a google for Adverse possession

The Irish Position


In September 2007, a High Court case, Dunne v Iarnród Éireann and CIE, set out the test for determining whether a squatter had acquired the property by adverse possession in Ireland. In summary, the principles applied by the court were as follows:

• is there a continuous period of 12 years during which the squatter was in exclusive possession of the lands in question to an extent sufficient to establish an intention to possess the land itself?, and
  
• is any contended period of possession broken by an act of possession by the landowner? If so, time will only start to run when the act of the landowner terminates.

The court qualified the second part of the test by holding that the sufficiency of the act of possession required for the landowner to break possession and wind the clock back to zero was a very low threshold. This would be satisfied by even the slightest of acts of possession on the part of the landowner. The court also accepted that the future intended use of the land by the landowner could not be relevant except perhaps as one of the indicators relevant to a bona fide held intention to possess, or lack thereof. In this case, the owner, CIE, had carried out works on part of the land and had at one stage reestablished fences between the lands and the neighbour's lands. The court found the actions to be sufficient to start the clock running again.

If you can hold on to it for 12 years without having it contested or maintained by the legal owner you can apply for Adverse possession of the property

gigino

some nice new properties, close to large towns + large employers, are being sold for 50k to 55k, depending on location

e.g. http://www.daft.ie/searchsale.daft?id=310830-

ones in less good locations / in the middle of nowhere are going for less than 47k

To put that in context, its less than a years gross average public sector salary, according to c.s.o. satistics.

Its unlikey they will go much lower than a years wages, so lets hope we have now reached the bottom.

Amhran Nua

gigino wrote: »

Its unlikey they will go much lower than a years wages, so lets hope we have now reached the bottom.

The stable price for housing is around 12 to 15 times annual rent for an area. This represents a 7% to 8% return for an investor, the minimum, and so is generally viewed as a good rule of thumb for pricing property. I'm guessing prices will undershoot that by a bit here, but then again rents are falling too so who knows how low it will go.

Pointing at two bed apartments in Leitrim won't change that there's a long way to fall yet.